You've seen them. Those crisp, flawlessly lit, hyper-detailed images of a game that's still six months away from release. They look incredible. They look impossible. And, quite often, they are. In the gaming industry, we call these "bullshots"—a portmanteau of "bullshit" and "screenshot." It’s a term that’s been floating around since the mid-2000s, popularized by sites like Penny Arcade, to describe promotional images that don't actually reflect the gameplay experience.
But here is the real question: does bullshot really work to sell games, or does it just make everyone mad?
Honestly, it’s a bit of both. We live in an era where visual fidelity is a primary selling point for $70 triple-A titles. Marketing departments are under immense pressure to make a game stand out in a crowded digital storefront. If a screenshot looks "just okay," it gets scrolled past. If it looks like a Renaissance painting with 8K textures, it goes viral. The industry keeps doing it because, on a primitive lizard-brain level, we respond to pretty things.
Yet, there is a massive cost to this practice. When the gap between the marketing and the reality—the "downgrade," as players call it—becomes too wide, it triggers a PR nightmare. Think Watch Dogs at E3 2012 versus its 2014 launch. Or the Aliens: Colonial Marines debacle. These aren't just minor differences; they are fundamental shifts in lighting, particle effects, and geometry that leave players feeling cheated.
The Technical Wizardry Behind the Lie
How do they even make these? It isn't just Photoshop. Usually, a bullshot is captured using a "vertical slice" of the game running on a high-end PC that would melt a standard console.
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Developers use internal tools to render the frame at massive resolutions—sometimes 8K or higher—and then downsample it to 1080p or 4K. This removes every jagged edge (aliasing) and makes the image look impossibly smooth. They also crank up the Level of Detail (LOD) settings. In a real game, a tree 50 yards away might be a low-poly blob to save memory. In a bullshot, that tree has every individual leaf rendered with a unique shadow.
They also cheat with the "camera." In-game cameras have constraints. Bullshot cameras are placed by hand, often using custom lighting rigs that don't exist in the actual game engine to highlight the protagonist's cheekbones or the leather texture of a jacket. It's essentially digital cinematography. It's beautiful. It's also a total fabrication of the average user's experience.
Why Your Eyes Get Deceived So Easily
Human perception is a funny thing. We don't see in "frames per second," but we do notice when something feels "off." Bullshots work because they remove the "off" factors.
- Perfect Anti-Aliasing: No shimmering edges.
- Zero Texture Pop-in: Everything is loaded perfectly.
- Enhanced Post-Processing: Motion blur and depth of field are dialed to 11.
Basically, it’s the McDonald's burger in the commercial versus the one you get at the drive-thru. One is styled by a professional with tweezers and glue; the other was assembled in four seconds by a teenager. We know the commercial is a lie, but we still want the burger.
Does Bullshot Really Work for Long-Term Sales?
This is where the data gets murky. Short-term? Yes. Bullshots drive pre-orders. They generate "hype," which is the currency of the gaming industry. A stunning trailer or a set of breathtaking screenshots can lead to millions of views and a massive spike in Wishlist additions on Steam.
However, the long-term impact is often negative. When No Man's Sky launched in 2016, the backlash wasn't just about missing features; it was about the fact that the game didn't look like those lush, vibrant E3 trailers. Hello Games spent years digging themselves out of that hole. They eventually made the game better than the trailers, but the initial "bullshot" stigma nearly killed the studio.
Contrast this with a company like FromSoftware. Their screenshots for Elden Ring or Armored Core VI generally look exactly like the game. There is a "what you see is what you get" honesty that builds immense brand loyalty. In the modern era of Steam reviews and social media, a "bullshot" is a high-risk, high-reward gamble. You might get the pre-order, but you might also get a refund request within two hours.
The Evolution of the "In-Engine" Label
To cover their backs, publishers started using the "In-Engine" or "In-Game Footage" watermarks. You've seen them in the corner of trailers. But these terms are incredibly slippery.
"In-Engine" just means the assets were rendered using the game's engine (like Unreal Engine 5). It doesn't mean those assets are running in real-time on a PlayStation 5. It could be a pre-rendered cinematic that took three days to output one minute of footage. "Target Render" is another sneaky one—it's basically saying, "We hope the game looks like this, but it probably won't."
Cyberpunk 2077 is the poster child for this. The early gameplay reveals were stunning. When the game finally hit base PS4 and Xbox One consoles, it looked like a different game entirely. The "bullshot" wasn't just a screenshot; it was a whole marketing campaign built on a version of the game that didn't practically exist for the majority of the audience.
The Role of Photo Mode
Interestingly, the rise of "Photo Mode" has changed the conversation. Now, players can make their own bullshots. By pausing the game, the engine can redirect resources from AI and physics into rendering a single, high-quality frame.
When a player takes a stunning photo in Ghost of Tsushima or God of War, they are essentially creating their own promotional material. This has made the professional bullshot a bit less "necessary" for marketing, yet the pros still do it. Why? Because they can control the narrative. They can hide the glitches, the clipping, and the low-res shadows that a player might find.
The Legal Side of the Lie
Can you sue for a bullshot? It’s tough. In the UK, the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) actually investigated Hello Games over No Man's Sky but ultimately cleared them, ruling that the "procedural nature" of the game meant players could theoretically find the stuff in the trailers.
In the US, the FTC has guidelines about deceptive advertising, but "puffery"—the legal term for exaggerated marketing claims—is usually protected. Unless a company explicitly says, "This is 100% captured on a standard console in real-time" and it's a blatant lie, they usually get away with it. It’s a gray area that publishers exploit to the fullest.
How to Spot a Bullshot Like a Pro
If you want to protect your wallet, you have to learn to see past the polish. It’s actually not that hard once you know what to look for.
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- Check the HUD: If there is no Heads-Up Display (health bars, ammo counts, mini-maps), it’s almost certainly a bullshot or a highly staged "cinematic" capture.
- Look at the Ground: Real games often have "flat" ground textures with some "billboard" grass. Bullshots will have perfectly tessellated stones and individual blades of grass that don't clip through the character's boots.
- The Lighting is Too Good: If every character has a perfect "rim light" (a glow around their silhouette) even in a dark cave, it's a staged shot.
- The Resolution is Too Clean: If you zoom in on a 4K image and see zero pixelation or "noise," it’s been downsampled from a much higher resolution.
Honestly, the best way to tell if does bullshot really work for a specific game is to wait for "unfiltered" gameplay from creators on YouTube or Twitch. They don't have the fancy dev kits or the custom lighting rigs. They just have the game.
Moving Toward Transparency
There is a growing movement toward "raw" gameplay captures. Sony’s State of Play events and Nintendo’s Directs have become much better about showing actual, stuttery, imperfect gameplay. They realized that the "downgrade" controversy is more expensive than the "wow" factor of a fake screenshot.
Ubisoft, once the king of the bullshot, has also pulled back significantly. Their recent reveals for Assassin's Creed games are much closer to the final product. It seems the industry is slowly learning that trust is a more valuable asset than a 4K wallpaper.
Practical Steps for the Savvy Gamer
So, what should you do next time a game looks too good to be true?
- Ignore the "First Reveal" visuals. That's the honeymoon phase. It's meant to make you feel, not think.
- Search for "Off-screen gameplay." Footage taken by someone with a camera at a trade show (like Gamescom) is the most honest look you’ll ever get.
- Wait for the Digital Foundry analysis. These guys break down the technical reality of games. If they say the lighting in the trailer isn't possible on current hardware, believe them.
- Look for the "Captured on PC" fine print. If a game is being marketed for consoles but the footage is from a PC with a $2,000 graphics card, you aren't seeing the game you're going to buy.
The "bullshot" isn't going away. It's too effective at grabbing attention in a world with a three-second attention span. But as a consumer, your power lies in knowing that those screenshots are art, not reality. Treat them like a concept sketch—a "vibe" of what the game wants to be, rather than a promise of what it is. When you stop believing the bullshot, you stop being disappointed by the launch.
Instead of pre-ordering based on a pretty picture, wait for the first "Real-Time Gameplay" stream. That’s where the truth lives. If the game is still fun without the 8K textures and the fake lighting, then you know it’s actually worth your time. The industry will only stop using bullshots when we stop rewarding them with our money before we see the real product.